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New European collective licensing regulation formally goes live
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 11 April 2016
If you heard a boom at one minute past midnight yesterday, that was collective licensing in Europe being sorted out once and for all. Every single little gripe you ever had about PRS and PPL (feel free to insert another European collecting society here if you wish) is now over, because the European Union has sorted it all out for you. What a glorious time to be alive this really is.
So yes, yesterday was the deadline for member states of the European Union to implement the Collective Rights Management Directive of 2014, which set out new rules governing so called ‘collective management organisations’, like the aforementioned PRS and PPL.
The EU directive, and resulting national laws, should make it easier for creators and rights owners to move their works between CMOs around Europe, ensure members have decent representation within their societies, that payments are timely, and everything is more transparent.
“This is great news for UK rights holders who deserve to be paid accurately and promptly for their work”, said IP minister Lucy Neville-Rolfe this weekend, as provisions in the CRM Directive became law in the UK. “I am certain that the increased oversight and transparency offered to artists will improve the standards of collective management organisations across Europe, and make the entire process run more smoothly. It is right that artists have more choice over who manages their work and how they do it”.
Transparency, or the lack thereof, remains a big issue in the artist and songwriter community, of course, with performers and creators often in the dark about key elements of the deals labels, publishers and CMOs do, especially with digital services. But hey, CMOs are super transparent now, so everyone phone up PRS and ask for the precise revenue share arrangements and per-stream minima in its Spotify deal! Oh, not that transparent then.
Though – while plenty of gripes about the operations and governance of collecting societies will remain within the music community – some creators and rights owners do admit that they have already seen improvements within certain CMOs in Europe since the CRM Directive was passed at a European level two years ago, especially when it comes to royalty reporting.
Now, some of that will actually be down to increased competition from more transparent and more efficient commercial operators in the rights administration sector, though the fact the directive should make it easier for people and companies to move their rights between societies increases that market pressure, which should in theory improve the services European CMOs provide to their members.
While more CMOs are now dabbling with multi-territory licensing, especially in the digital domain, in many more traditional areas of collective licensing national societies still rely on their counterparts in other countries to collect from licensees and to then pass that money on through reciprocal agreements. Which means that PRS and PPL members in the UK should benefit from better governance and royalty processing at societies with which they have no direct contact, as well as any improvements they may or may not see at home.
Which is a point noted by the boss of the UK’s Music Managers Forum, Annabella Coldrick, who said this weekend: “The Music Managers Forum supports the provisions of the CRM Directive to help drive increased transparency and accountability within the UK’s collective music management bodies – PPL and PRS. We hope that the implementation of these requirements in other European territories should lead to increased revenues being correctly returned to UK artists from overseas”.
Back in the world of collective licensing itself, the chief of PRS – Robert Ashcroft – also welcomed the CRM Directive finally going live, reckoning his organisation already complies, and that the new rules should ensure the repertoire his organisation represents benefits from more efficient CMO management elsewhere in Europe. Ashcroft will also support the regulation that encourages more competition between CMOs in Europe, PRS being one of the societies with global ambitions, both with its own repertoire and via the previously reported ICE joint venture with German and Swedish societies GEMA and STIM.
Said Ashcroft yesterday: “From its inception we have supported the overarching principles and objectives of the CRM Directive and the intention to create a framework that promotes transparency, efficiency and accountability by collecting societies in Europe. These characteristics are vital to effective rights management, not just for digital online markets but for national licensing. The directive also provides the essential legal framework to support competition among collective rights management organisations for rightholders’ mandates rather than for licensees, further encouraging the competitive market for online rights by setting high standards for the delivery of multi-territory licensing”.
So that’s that, the European Union has officially fixed collective licensing. And those of you still pissed off with your own societies, about this or that or whatever, will now just have to join the Brexit campaign. Actually don’t. If every artist and songwriter pissed off with their collecting societies joined the Brexit campaign, that Bpoplive gig would have the longest line-up in history.
